Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Only in America!

As “establishment” incumbent Republican Thad Cochran is poised to defeat tea party challenger Chris McDaniel,
purportedly with help from Democratic and African-American voters
(Mississippi is an open primary), Russert had this hot take to share
with America:

Only in #USA can a 76yr old white man from #Mississippi be the Republican who figured out how to turn out African-Americans for #GOP
— Luke Russert (@LukeRussert) June 25, 2014

So… only in America could something that could literally only happen in America
happen. Unless some other country has a Republican Party, a state
called Mississippi and — somehow — a significant population of
African-Americans, Russert’s analysis makes zero percent sense. Or maybe
it was a bizarre attempt at humor.

Maybe it was. Russert later explained he was making a "Don King reference." And I suppose if we remember Don King's famous catch phrase, "I meant to do that," then, yeah, OK.

But Russert, being the scion of one of our nation's most prestigious Punditry Earldoms, does know his manners. He keeps his observations as light and accessible as possible so as not to confuse people. That only in the #USA could a thing happen in Mississippi is an inescapable fact.

Well, now it is anyway. There was a time once when this might have been in doubt. In fact Mississippi Republican primary voters are sometimes known for their quirky loose grasp on whether or not that was actually settled all the way which can lead to some interesting situations.

The victory for Cochran marks the end of a long, bloody, and often
bizarre primary election that took center stage in the GOP Civil War and
included two separate episodes, one, in which a McDaniel supporter and political blogger was arrested for photographing Cochran's wife to use in an anti-Cochran video and another where McDaniel supporters found themselves locked
in the Hinds County, Mississippi courthouse (where election ballots are
kept) after the building had been locked. McDaniel was also dogged in
the race for appearing at at least one neo-Confederate event and having been slated to attend another tea party event that featured a vendor of Confederate merchandise.

So in order to ward off his Tea Party affiliated (possibly neo-Confederate) fire-breathing challenger, the patrician Senator reached out to Democratic crossover voters some of which, it turns out, are not white.

Cochran's pouring lots of money into GOTV efforts and he's made little
secret post-primary that he's seeking Democratic and African-American
votes. And there seems little question that he's got the McDaniel camp
worried. It even gets a little more concrete. A pro-Cochran super PAC
has hired a Democratic operative named James "Scooby Doo" Warren (yeah,
who knows) to do GOTV work in the state's African-American community.
The PAC is tied to a prominent African-American pastor named Ronnie
Crudup Sr. And if that's not enough, Warren has made clear that he's
going to be working to elect Democratic nominee Travis Childers.

Nevermind that last line about this Warren guy "working to elect" the Democrat. I'm sure he'll take that money too, of course. But the reason he went to work for Cochran was because this primary is the only race that matters.

Following a longstanding southern trend, Mississippi has arrived at something like the "one-party rule" scenario that once allowed Democrats to hold sway only a few generations ago. Only now the GOP is where all the meaningful action takes place. When we're back to a situation where the "second primary" is the de facto general election, you should expect to see candidates appeal to a broader constituency there.

Instead, McDaniel, in his election night speech to supporters on
Tuesday, suggested that he would fight the election results. McDaniel
said "there is something a bit strange, there is something a bit unusual
about a Republican primary that's decided by liberal Democrats."

McDaniel's comments are a clear reference to the Cochran campaign
seeking out the support of African-Americans and Democratic voters in
the state to bringing him over the finish line in the runoff. Even
though McDaniel won in the runoff it was by a slim margin. When the race
was called late on Tuesday with 98 percent reporting Cochran led McDaniel 50.6 percent to 49.4 percent.

"As you know there were literally dozens of irregularities reported
across this state. And you know why. You read the stories. You're
familiar, you're familiar with the problems that we had," McDaniel said.

If he persists in challenging, I wouldn't expect McDaniel to overturn the result. At the same time, though, I'd caution against putting much stock in the next round of "Now the Tea Party is surely dead" observations we're sure to see. (Perhaps Luke Russert will tweet one for us.) On the contrary, nothing fires up the right wing base like a good long racially charged exercise in false victimhood. This one is bound to have legs enough to get us through the heart of the summer.

And suddenly it's time for midterms where whatever happens will be difficult to spin as anything other than a net Republican gain. And then we're on to a year and a half of Benghazi hearings before it's time for Stupid Season Staring Hillary Clinton to begin. Can't imagine we'll be living in a world of only "sensible Republicans" by then. But we will still be living in the #USA and only in the #USA. Or at least one hopes we will. Otherwise, Russert might be out of a job.